


A Tale of the Riverbank

by orphan_account



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-22
Updated: 2011-08-22
Packaged: 2017-10-22 23:03:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/243551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Robbie goes to his daughter's and Rose goes on a course, both James and Maggie are at a loose end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale of the Riverbank

Lewis had taken leave to go and visit his daughter who was getting ready for the birth of her baby and, by all accounts, not having too good a time of it.

 

James was kicking around the office with nothing much to do and in a foul mood. Had he been able to, he would have thrown himself into work but the general public seemed determined to thwart his enthusiasm by behaving impeccably and his appetite for backlogs in the paperwork was diminishing rapidly.

 

He was, therefore, delighted when he got a call from Maggie, ex Sister Magdalena, who was also at a loose end. Her civil partner, Rose, had gone off on a course in Edinburgh, would he, she wondered, like to spend Sunday together as she something nice to do and didn’t want to do it alone.

 

“How do you fancy a picnic on the river with just one catch?”

“What’s the catch?” He smiled.

“You have to row. That’s far too strenuous for me, but everything else is provided. I just need your muscles.” She giggled and then said “In a purely boat-handling way, if you know what I mean”. James felt himself colouring, she often had this effect on him. Rowing? No problem at all, he would welcome the chance to burn off some excess energy and he hadn’t been out on the river for a while.

 

They agreed a time and place on the Sunday morning and James felt strangely elated when he hung up. He didn’t have many friends, apart from the musical group in which he played and he liked Maggie’s company very much. So at least one day of Lewis’ absence would be fun.

 

They arrived at “Bygone Times” almost at the same time and Maggie brushed his cheek with her lips in greeting. “This is going to be a real slice!” she announced. “My friend has just set it up and we are guinea pigs for it. All we have to do is give detailed feedback.”

 

They went into the wooden shack by the jetty and a tall dark woman slinked out from behind a curtain to grab Maggie and hug her enthusiastically. James only merited a perfunctory and limp handshake as he was waved into a corner with a clothes rail and a full length mirror. Bygone Times, it turned out, was a time-travel boating experience where one was dressed in period costume and borrowed a boat to go on a picnic. The dark woman flicked an expert eye over James’ thin frame and chose a striped blazer and a straw boater with a matching band around it.

Maggie was being helped into an all-in-one costume that did up at the back but gave the impression of an Edwardian day-dress, complete with bustle. She piled up her hair and popped an enormous picture hat on top, surmounted with huge roses. They looked across at each other and doubled up laughing, delighted with the effect.

 

The rowing boat was tied up at the side of the jetty with a large picnic hamper already in place. James climbed in carefully and then turned to hand Maggie into the boat, making sure she was seated comfortably on the big pile of cushions in the stern before he retrieved the oars and nodded to the other woman to cast them off. It was a beautiful day, not too hot but bright and clear and it was early enough in the season for there to be little traffic on the river at that time of day. Maggie swished a large cloth in the water and draped it across the bottles peeping out of the wicker picnic basket.

“Form of refrigeration,” she explained. When James raised an eyebrow she said “Boy Scout training” at which he let out a snort of laughter and said

“Nothing would surprise me.” She flicked water at him and poked out her tongue

“Watch your woggle, Hathaway! I know 17 different knots!” They giggled again and it was fun to be out, to have no worries and just be with a friend.

 

James put his back into the rowing and they skimmed along for half an hour in silence, Maggie trailing a hand in the water and eyeing him unashamedly with a slight smile on her face.

“Were you intending to buy, Madam, or are you just looking?” He finally enquired.

“I am an art lover, Hathaway ………. And from some angles you are a work of art.” She said candidly. Then after a pause, “I bet you are stunning naked.”

He went crimson and nearly dropped an oar, missing a stroke and getting out of synch completely. “Maggie! Please!”

“Art, my dear, just art-appreciation, don’t be so prudish. Rose would love to draw you, you know. And you couldn’t possibly be worried about her. She is so off men, it’s off the scale. Perfectly understandable but even she said you had muscle-structure to die for. Don’t look at me like that. If the guy that Michelangelo approached to model for David had been like you we would be missing one of the greatest works of art in the world. Take it as a compliment, you pillock.”

 

The furious blush fading from his face, Hathaway took a deep breath and said quietly

 

“Thank you. I’m not used to being admired for the sake of it... I realise you think I’m stupid or uptight or something but the last time someone thought I was “a beautiful specimen” it caused me a lot of pain and anguish.” He shipped the oars and looked across at her, willing her to understand even though he’d never talked to her about the abuse. She was his best friend and he hoped she’d just make the connection. That was what he really wanted. He didn’t want to have to bring out the blood and shit-stained towels for her to see, just for her to know they were in the laundry basket.

 

Maggie’s perfect teeth made an indentation on her lower lip and she whispered

“Sorry James,” after which there was an awkward silence until he looked over his shoulder and noticed the landing stage a few hundred yards up and turned the boat towards it. As he held out a hand to help her out, she caught it a little too hard and insistently “Please forgive me, I was only messing about”. He nodded and bent to help her with the picnic hamper. Taking a handle each they walked on til they found a perfect spot, under some trees, on soft sward just by the water. Maggie shook out a tartan rug and they opened the hamper to see what they had.

 

James sat down awkwardly on the rug; he wasn’t one of those people who did sitting on the floor very easily.

 

“Well it isn’t ginger beer” she remarked cheerfully “Very good champagne. And beer; Oooo and some of that nice French fruit cordial … I think this could get interesting; and loads of food. Cake! There’s cake, James!” Maggie looked up with her eyes shining and he forgave her, wishing yet again that he weren’t so uptight and hog-tied by his past. He would have given anything to be as free-spirited and happy as her.

 

She opened two bottles of beer and flopped down beside him, her legs straight out in front of her like a rag doll. She clinked bottles with him and said

 

“Good job it’s downstream on the way back. To us! Life, love and the pursuit of happiness”

“To us,” he echoed but didn’t say the rest. “Do you think we ought to take these costumes off before we eat,” he asked. “I don’t want to get cold chicken fat all over them.” Once they had carefully folded the costumes over a branch they lounged back in their own clothes and resumed their beers.

 

“You’re so sad James. I wish I could make you happy”, said Maggie pensively, staring at the river. “I think you started to be sad a long time ago and now you’ve forgotten how to be happy.” He thought about that for a while and then answered very slowly.

 

“Yes, that’s probably true but it’s a sort of permanent state with me, like my face looking smug – I can’t help it. I’m lonely. It’s my own fault I’m lonely but there you are, that’s more the case. I can’t let people in.” He surprised himself with that admission because he didn’t do soul-searching with others as a rule.

 

“You let me in,” Maggie pointed out, opening two more beers.

“You’re different. You’re my twin. Well, the opposite side of the same coin.”

“You’re my saint and I’m your devil,” she laughed.

“And vice versa” he agreed, laying back and looking up through the leaves at the dappled sunlight.

She hugged her knees and looked out at the river again for several minutes before saying,

“Isn’t there anything I could do to make you happy James? In any way? I hate to see you so adrift.”

 

He thought about it. What was making him unhappy - His infatuation with his boss; his faith; his ambivalence about his sexuality; the utter desolation of having nobody to cling to; the feeling of not being of this world and too defiled for the next? What could Maggie do about any of that? Perhaps she could make him feel less alone, if only for a while.

 

“I couldn’t ask you,” he said and realised that the huskiness of his voice had given away what he was thinking so he tried to make it a joke “I suppose a snog is out of the question?”

 

Maggie was no fool and she knew when a joke is a cover for a cry for help, so she put her beer bottle down and turned to James, lying beside her, leant down on the elbow nearest him and very gently dropped her mouth to his, careful not to touch him with her hand, not to be threatening and just give him the kiss he’d asked for.

 

James had never known such skill and delicacy. Maggie made a kiss into a full sexual act. She made love to his mouth with her tongue and took him to places he didn’t think he would ever go, not in this world or the next, leaving him hard, arching his back and seeking her more. It felt as if her tongue were a gentle snake, exploring every inch of his interior, feeling into his darkest secrets and soothing the pain that hid there. He put his hands above his head in a form of complete surrender, as if tied. She could do what she wanted with him, he didn’t mind any more.

 

After what felt like an age, she paused and looked down on him. He couldn’t speak, too full of emotion so he just smiled at her and nodded silently. She’d understand what he meant. She nodded back and undid her jeans, sliding them down and reaching for his waistband but he stopped her. He wanted this to last and if she started to touch him it would be over in a moment. It had been too long and he knew how bow-string tight he was stretched, so he rolled her over and began to kiss her, trying to be as slow and deliberate as she had been, while his hand reached down.

 

He had to fight the panic that welled up in him as he touched her pubic hair. Hellfire and damnation, eternal fires and fornicators roasting shot into his mind. No, not now, not this time, he’d deal with the guilt afterwards but for now he was going to make sure this lovely, generous woman enjoyed it too. She’d already given him a great deal of pleasure just by kissing him and he wanted to pay her back, even though he knew he would be clumsy and inexperienced compared to her.

 

“Help me,” he whispered, “I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” She took his hand and guided it, first using his index finger to open her slit and let him feel the soft, warm wetness inside there. It felt like another mouth, sucking gently on his finger, wet as her tongue. Then she flicked his thumb through her juices and helped him to find her clit, sliding and rubbing it gently so she gasped with pleasure. The hard little button quivered under his thumb and he slid his middle finger into her; a long, musician’s finger that caused her to rock in time with him, panting. Without warning she grabbed his shoulder and called out his name through gritted teeth. His finger was gripped by the pulsing flesh, hot liquid flooded over his hand, it was almost like a man coming, but he didn’t have time to wonder at it because she was pulling at him, urging him on top of her.

 

There is some primeval instinct that takes over and James suddenly found that he knew what to do as he rubbed the end of his dick in her entrance, biting the inside of his lip and holding his breath to make it last. Maggie was moaning, squirming, wanting him and begging James to get inside her, so he stopped holding back and thrust hard into her. She pushed up to meet him, they strained together for a few strokes and then James felt the wave taking him over. Despite all his efforts, he was going to come, the white heat was throbbing in his centre and he gasped for breath as he emptied his balls into her softness, feeling her sucking at him, rocking under him and then it was like passing out with a migraine, lights going on and off in his head and blood roaring in his ears.

 

Sometimes, when it is really good, the after-effects take a while to end. Eventually James came to, lying on Maggie like a beach-towel. He tried to push himself up on his arms but felt weak and wobbly.

“I think you’ve killed me,” he moaned.

“No, you killed ME,” she groaned back “and it was bloody marvellous.”

“It was, wasn’t it?” he agreed.

Fortunately there were paper towels in the picnic so they cleaned up and then stared, somewhat stunned, at each other, wondering what to say.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Maggie observed.

“No, nor was I. It just, sort of happened. What are we going to do?”

“Nothing, James. It didn’t happen. It was a dream. You are my best friend and I did you a kindness. You are my best friend, you did me a kindness. It was nothing more.” She leaned over and kissed him gently on the cheek “Don’t let’s let it spoil everything. Please, James.”

“No, it won’t. I just don’t want you to think I take it lightly, that I don’t app…..” She placed a finger on his lips.

“No – you still respect me, I know. And don’t say it.”

“How did you know I was going to say it?”

“I’m Catholic too – you have to say you love me or it was wicked vile fornication – and then if you love me you’ll have to marry me ……. Forget it, sweetheart. I do love you but not like that and I know you love Robbie, however doomed that is. And I am already married to Rose. That was fabulous, James, but it was an anomaly – a one off; don’t get all screwed up about it. OK? Like you keep saying – it’s complicated!”

“A one-off?” he sounded almost sad. “Never again?”

“No, well, probably not ……….. maybe not. Well, we’d have to think about it, Hun. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” She snuggled up to his side and he put an arm around her, feeling her warmth against him and revelling in it.

He realised that it was only sex but it was an enormous relief and he was enormously grateful to this strange woman. They’d never be more than best friends but to have a friend who was prepared to do that … was more than he could have hoped for. He held up his glass and clinked with Maggie

“To friendship.”

“To friendship” she smiled back at him and he felt unbearably happy, no matter how temporary this might be.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a genuine memoire of an incident between a mainly gay man and a mainly lesbian woman who were best of friends. It was some times ago so I hope readers will forgive me any lapses; it is as real here as it is in my memory.  
> With gratitude to the real Maggie.  
> FC


End file.
